


Sooner rather than later

by Hope



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-05
Updated: 2006-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:08:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/43883.html</p></blockquote>





	Sooner rather than later

*

Sam had been an angelic baby but he sure was making up for it now. When John walks ’round the foreshortened bench of the tiny kitchenette Sammy’s sitting there on the floor, legs splayed out, white undershirt loose on his white, curled back, wispy blond head bent over the saucepan upturned between his knees. Chubby fist clenched round the handle of a wooden spoon.

“Sammy,” John says. Then louder, “_Sammy._” And the spoon comes to rest one last time on the saucepan base and stays there. Sammy’s head jerks up, eyes wide, mouth still open in concentration. A string of drool extends from his lower lip, and then his mouth curls up, eyes curl up, whole damn face curls up and he hammers at the saucepan a few more frenetic times before reaching his arms out and up.

John gets a spoon in the ear for his trouble, but Sammy’s free hand curls like a hot, sticky limpet against the tendon at the back of his neck and things could be worse. He sniffs a little cautiously, heaves a minor sigh of relief. _Much_ worse.

Dean’s face-down on the floor in the closet-sized bedroom, arms and legs sprawled out behind him as if he’d careened head-first onto the carpet at great velocity. John slips an arm ’round his waist and hauls him gently upward, the small lead-cast soldier sticking to Dean’s cheek coming unstuck and thudding dully to the carpet. Dean’s skin’s soft, like warm dough, and the soldier leaves an imprint even as the rest of his body drapes bonelessly over John’s curved elbow. Sammy’s tiny body wriggles a little against John’s chest, movement still unsure rather than graceful, though John can feel the constant tiny shifts of balance as he walks in the fragile column of Sammy’s spine.

Sam makes a noise, and John doesn’t have a free hand to take the wooden spoon from Sammy when Sammy decides the back of John’s skull is _much_ more satisfying than a saucepan. He curses softly, then slightly louder when he has to bend a little to deposit Dean’s limp body on his bed and Sammy’s skull cracks against John’s temple. Sammy drops the spoon John holds his breath, waiting for tears and emergency-siren wails but when he turns his head slightly to look he sees Sammy’s face mirroring his own, wide-eyed and kinda startled. They start laughing at the same time, and Dean makes a snuffling noise and shakes his head a little on the bed.

“Daddy?” he mumbles, still asleep enough to use the word instead of the fierce-jawed _I’m a big boy now_ ‘Dad’ he’d taken up of late.

“Shh,” John says, adjusting Sammy a little to lean down, put his hand on Dean’s sleep-warm and -damp hair. Dean’s as dark as his brother is fair, born with a shock of hair that looked black when it was still newborn-wet, lightening to brown when dry, as John’s had. Sammy’d grown wispy-white within the first few months, but his eyes are baby-blue, not bottle-glass like Mary’s, so John knows both hair and eyes will darken as Sam gets older.

“Is the sitter gone?” Dean can barely lift his head, voice still slurred. John thinks it’s probably his own fault Dean won’t even use her name, as he’s never really referred to the girl as anything but ‘the sitter’, but still. He can’t decide whether he’s proud of Dean for keeping that distance, or slightly guilty at the thought of Dean addressing her thus to her face.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, Sammy’s now spoon-free hand finding the hair behind his ear and gripping fiercely. The hair at the back of Sammy’s head tickles John’s nose as Sam turns to look down as well. “Yeah buddy, she’s gone.”

“I don’t like her.”

John’s sure Dean’s still mostly asleep, won’t even remember this conversation. He works at manouvering the blankets out from under Dean then over his lax body with only one hand.

“When can we go back to Mike and Kate’s house?”

John pauses, hand on the back of Dean’s neck. It’s sleep-hot and sweaty, and Dean stirs just a little, glimmer of his eyes cracked open to stare up at John. It’s the damn soldiers that reminds him every time, the ones Kate gave to Dean, bought pre-emptively for one of Kate’s two stillborns. John’s not entirely sure it was a gift Dean was even _meant_ to keep, but there was no opportunity to ask. He’d only found them later, anyway, in a little ziplock bag with Sammy’s baby things, not sure if it’d been Dean or Kate who’d put them there and unwilling to ask.

“Soon, Dean,” John murmurs, and Dean’s eyes slide shut again. “Soon we’ll go home.” It’s a gentle surge of confidence, warm in his belly with Dean safe and sleeping under his hand, Sammy’s baby breath against his face, sweet and milky.

The rhythm of lulling Sammy to sleep in his crib, baby body softening and sprawling as the tiny-fist grip on John’s thumb loosens, softens out the rest of the room as well and John is left feeling slow, lazy. His body’s heavy, breathing deep from his chest in a steady rhythm and the room is filled with the sound of it, air almost textured and dark, holding up his body effortlessly. It smells like cheap hotel and nursery, like sleepy Dean and baby Sammy. John leans back and the space is cramped enough that he can keep a hand in Sammy’s crib and lean his head against the edge of Dean’s bed.

He dozes for a while before his back starts to ache then he stands silently and kicks off his shoes, shrugs off his jacket. When Dean’d first come home from the hospital, and Sammy, for that matter, John’d been so terrified he’d roll over in his sleep and crush the tiny body, he’d been so unused to its presence. Too small to sleep alone, though, and Mary’d never worried about it. Mother’s instinct, maybe, that knew it could never happen, unintentionally or no. Knew that John’d never do it, either.

John eases down next to Dean, feels Dean’s small body curl against his side as the mattress dips. Even if he wakes up sprawling in the morning, it doesn’t matter any more; Dean’ll be in the crib, sure as the sun’s risen.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/43883.html


End file.
